Still in that case you are aware of the warrent as it is happening. This is more like the police showing up and raiding your house then telling you about it weeks later.

No, it's more like the police getting a warrant then sneaking into your house while you are going by having a locksmith jimmy the doors, placing recording devices all over your home, and then trying to say "Well, we had a warrant!" when you find one of those things and pitch a bitch at them.

Still in that case you are aware of the warrent as it is happening. This is more like the police showing up and raiding your house then telling you about it weeks later.

No, it's more like the police getting a warrant then sneaking into your house while you are going by having a locksmith jimmy the doors, placing recording devices all over your home, and then trying to say "Well, we had a warrant!" when you find one of those things and pitch a bitch at them.

That kind of surveillance is exactly the type of thing a warrant is designed to allow the police to do, even if it's covert.

If one of my employees was under investigation for distributing illegal narcotics, and the investigation turned up that at least some of the time, those transactions were being conducted during work hours from my office, I would not be the least bit surprised if the authorities showed up with a warrant to search his workspace and desk, looking for notes, contact phone numbers, and so on. They might even search my company's phone records. That doesn't even in the slightest bit implicate me, my company, or his coworkers. The fact that there were more search warrants requested than charges doesn't necessarily suggest that the search warrants were a mere fishing expedition.

Facebook does not have much of a reputation of being the defender of privacy rights, and 400 people is a drop in the bucket of their user base, so they couldn't claim that the authorities are trying to data mine them. I suspect that Facebook's opposition had more to deal with the fact that it will inevitably be revealed exactly HOW MUCH data Facebook actually collected from those 400 people that will be the PR nightmare that they are trying to avoid, possibly leading to a public outcry which leads to an increase in demands for privacy protections, impacting their business model.

Up next man gets fined by his local municipality for installing a pool without a permit...... Reports are saying that the AG office got a warrant for the mans Facebook account that showed him swimming, they then used a drone they had received from the US military that had been retired from use in Afghanistan to verify the existence of the pool by flying it over his house.

The AG's office contemplated just destroying the pool with one of the drones hell-fire missiles but realized that the cost of the missile plus the loss of the fine revenue would not be in the municipalities best financial interest.....

Do you even think? They got a warrant and did the due diligence necessary.

Sadly, many (if not most) warrants issued are either rubber stamps or based on false, incomplete, or misleading testimony. I don't know any details about this case in particular, but it's entirely possible that the only "due diligence" involved was using the right weasel words to get the warrant. If nothing else, the fact that only about 20% of the individuals named in the warrant were eventually charged would imply that it was an overly-broad "fishing expedition."

I believe they had a 90+ page document backing up the warrant.

And as others have said if you want to catch John Smith committing disability fraud you look at the pictures Jane Smith, Bob smith (son), and John Doe are posting because chances are they could have John Smith in them.

For me the issue is they didn't limit the scope, going off FB's counter brief posted earlier by another user. I wouldn't have a problem with them asking for data connected with John smith or even all communications/post between family members in X time period or after X date. Instead, they apparently wanted all data connected with the 300+ people for the life of their account. If Bob Smith is sending love notes to his girlfriend Jane Doe, I don't think they really need access to that. If they think they do at some point, they need to provide evidence for another warrant.

In regards to the 90+ pages to get that warrant, it's not really that much if you consider the number of people. It seems like they probably had evidence 100 people might be committing fraud, but they also wanted access to family accounts off 200 people.

I'll actually be interested in seeing if any other cases/charges result from this. For example: they find a message from little Johnny to his friend Bobby saying, "Hey they weed was awesome, call your guy to get more," Do they get to call the local cops where Johnny lives and say, he you might want to check this out.

I think everyone is missing the biggest infringement. Facebook is facing federal criminal charges because, they asked a judge to protect their Constitutional rights. The United States is becoming the kind of country where you go to court after your trial to find out what you were charged with and when you will be executed.

I think everyone is missing the biggest infringement. Facebook is facing federal criminal charges because, they asked a judge to protect their Constitutional rights. The United States is becoming the kind of country where you go to court after your trial to find out what you were charged with and when you will be executed.

You don't face contempt charges for trying to protect your Constitutional rights. You face contempt charges when you try to protect your rights, make the arguments, the judge hears the arguments and the rebuttals from the other parties, and eventually makes a ruling that your Constitutional rights aren't being infringed. And after all that, you decide you're still not going to turn over the information. That's when contempt charges start being discussed.

Also maybe I'm not Matlock but does a picture of you riding a bike while your on disability make you a insurance fraudster?

My point is this, its just a picture with no context. Now if you "checked-in" at franks sky-diving on Sunday, with accompanying pictures of you strapped to a parachute at like 5000ft all while you've been on disability for months....... That's a different story.

I have a feeling we are starting to reach the "crescendo" of our connected world & the pendulum is about to swing back. What started as a great way to communicate with friends and share pictures has turned into the most intensive tracking tool in the history of man.......To the point its literally being used to prosecute people, all with info they shared voluntarily...

[quote="I'll actually be interested in seeing if any other cases/charges result from this. For example: they find a message from little Johnny to his friend Bobby saying, "Hey they weed was awesome, call your guy to get more," Do they get to call the local cops where Johnny lives and say, he you might want to check this out.

I got into a bit of trouble like that once. In Mexico, the Coca cola they sell uses real sugar, not corn syrup. I purchased some at the local grocery store, then called up a friend to let him know, I had found some soft drinks that did not taste like ditch water and were marginally less unhealthy. "Dude, I just scored some Mexican Coke." The police officer behind me in line did not think it was funny.

I think everyone is missing the biggest infringement. Facebook is facing federal criminal charges because, they asked a judge to protect their Constitutional rights. The United States is becoming the kind of country where you go to court after your trial to find out what you were charged with and when you will be executed.

You don't face contempt charges for trying to protect your Constitutional rights. You face contempt charges when you try to protect your rights, make the arguments, the judge hears the arguments and the rebuttals from the other parties, and eventually makes a ruling that your Constitutional rights aren't being infringed. And after all that, you decide you're still not going to turn over the information. That's when contempt charges start being discussed.

What does a contempt charge do to a corporation? Particularly one that has that type of market cap?

Also maybe I'm not Matlock but does a picture of you riding a bike while your on disability make you a insurance fraudster?

My point is this, its just a picture with no context. Now if you "checked-in" at franks sky-diving on Sunday, with accompanying pictures of you strapped to a parachute at like 5000ft all while you've been on disability for months....... That's a different story.

I have a feeling we are starting to reach the "crescendo" of our connected world & the pendulum is about to swing back. What started as a great way to communicate with friends and share pictures has turned into the most intensive tracking tool in the history of man.......To the point its literally being used to prosecute people, all with info they shared voluntarily...

How about when a friend posts a message, "I was just driving down the road and I passed JPhillips riding a bike."

Do you even think? They got a warrant and did the due diligence necessary.

Sadly, many (if not most) warrants issued are either rubber stamps or based on false, incomplete, or misleading testimony. I don't know any details about this case in particular, but it's entirely possible that the only "due diligence" involved was using the right weasel words to get the warrant. If nothing else, the fact that only about 20% of the individuals named in the warrant were eventually charged would imply that it was an overly-broad "fishing expedition."

No, a fishing expedition is what the NSA does. A fishing expedition is asking for the records of the 30m people living in NY. This was a targeted strike, with a warrant. And a warrant is not given just against the individual facing prosecution, but also against people that might have information that can be used in prosecution. I see a lot of IANAL bits, but then people post any random thought that comes to their mind afterwords.

And this was against people that defrauded the government (that's us the taxpayers by the way) of 400m dollars. This ain't your Aunt Josie that is getting a disabled card for her auto because she needs a rascal to get around. This is premeditated fraud being used as a source of income, $400,000,000 worth.

Also maybe I'm not Matlock but does a picture of you riding a bike while your on disability make you a insurance fraudster?

My point is this, its just a picture with no context. Now if you "checked-in" at franks sky-diving on Sunday, with accompanying pictures of you strapped to a parachute at like 5000ft all while you've been on disability for months....... That's a different story.

I have a feeling we are starting to reach the "crescendo" of our connected world & the pendulum is about to swing back. What started as a great way to communicate with friends and share pictures has turned into the most intensive tracking tool in the history of man.......To the point its literally being used to prosecute people, all with info they shared voluntarily...

How about when a friend posts a message, "I was just driving down the road and I passed JPhillips riding a bike."

Honestly I'm not even sure what legal or not anymore. We have the NY AG's office prosecuting people using their families FB pictures......And in Florida we have the US Marshalls seizing files that were subject to a FOIA request and physically moving them 400 miles away just so they didn't have to comply with the FOIA order.......

Only the wonderful US Gov't can actually make Facebook look like the good guy. This sense of entitlement they seem to have for helping themselves to everyone's personal data is seemingly getting worse every day.

Any way they can prove that the pictures they posted were actually from the time period of disability?

If I go somewhere/do something really fun, I may release photos in bits and pieces on a yearly timeline to so everyone can think I'm having fun the whole year...

And somebody who is kinda broken has more time to spend reminiscing about the good times had while hale and hearty.Edit: My favorite picture editing program does not preserve any data about the pic, just the data that /is/ the pic, YMMV.But then, I'm the type who edits a photos.

Prosecutors have said in their cases that more than half the defendants received funds for fraudulent claims of post-traumatic stress disorder in the wake of the September terror attacks on the World Trade Center.

THese are people who are sitting there collecting disability checks for up to 50K a year, while holding down a job when they said they couldnt do ANY work at all.

retired police/firefighters saying that they could work due to PTSD from 9/11.

Regarding the 62/381 I am pretty sure that the large size of the second number is related to family members and friends of the investigated. If I claim an injury and still go out to play rugby with my friends and he posts a pic of us scrumming the investigators will want a pic of that.

To my mind that's even worse.

Now we can have a warrant for seizing everything a person posted on Facebook because they have some relation to another person being investigated?

That has the suspicious odor of general warrant to me.

If they want a warrant for information about target A from person B, it should be specifically for information that B has about A, and NOT for everything B has.

Words of wisdom: If you're gonna do something illegal, do NOT brag on social media.

I am disabled (I have a physical condition that severely impacts my quality of life) and I am able to do things that surprise many who are aware of the nature of my disability. This does not make me in any way not disabled. The things I do I am able to do because I have understanding friends who take the extra time to help me.

It disgusts me that people still think that being disabled means you cannot sometimes enjoy things that seem impossible. Sometimes it can be a struggle, but what's wrong with wanting to feel normal from time to time?

Words of wisdom: If you're gonna do something illegal, do NOT brag on social media.

I am disabled (I have a physical condition that severely impacts my quality of life) and I am able to do things that surprise many who are aware of the nature of my disability. This does not make me in any way not disabled. The things I do I am able to do because I have understanding friends who take the extra time to help me.

It disgusts me that people still think that being disabled means you cannot sometimes enjoy things that seem impossible. Sometimes it can be a struggle, but what's wrong with wanting to feel normal from time to time?

What does that have to do at all with what he posted? Last I checked, there aren't laws against doing things that people think you can't (unless, for example, you're blind and driving, but that's illegal for a reason...).

EDIT: or in the context of the article, if you posted a picture of yourself running and you claimed to be paralyzed, which isn't just "surprising" it's impossible.

Words of wisdom: If you're gonna do something illegal, do NOT brag on social media.

I am disabled (I have a physical condition that severely impacts my quality of life) and I am able to do things that surprise many who are aware of the nature of my disability. This does not make me in any way not disabled. The things I do I am able to do because I have understanding friends who take the extra time to help me.

It disgusts me that people still think that being disabled means you cannot sometimes enjoy things that seem impossible. Sometimes it can be a struggle, but what's wrong with wanting to feel normal from time to time?

Words of wisdom: If you're gonna do something illegal, do NOT brag on social media.

I am disabled (I have a physical condition that severely impacts my quality of life) and I am able to do things that surprise many who are aware of the nature of my disability. This does not make me in any way not disabled. The things I do I am able to do because I have understanding friends who take the extra time to help me.

It disgusts me that people still think that being disabled means you cannot sometimes enjoy things that seem impossible. Sometimes it can be a struggle, but what's wrong with wanting to feel normal from time to time?

What does that have to do at all with what he posted? Last I checked, there aren't laws against doing things that people think you can't (unless, for example, you're blind and driving, but that's illegal for a reason...).

... that's exactly my point. It is not illegal to do things that you would think someone with disability X is not capable of doing, yet this is being used as grounds to invade privacy, so someone apparently thinks they are a better judge of someone's condition than that person's doctor. Was the treating physician consulted? Were the patients interviewed? I doubt it.

Regarding the 62/381 I am pretty sure that the large size of the second number is related to family members and friends of the investigated. If I claim an injury and still go out to play rugby with my friends and he posts a pic of us scrumming the investigators will want a pic of that.

To my mind that's even worse.

Now we can have a warrant for seizing everything a person posted on Facebook because they have some relation to another person being investigated?

That has the suspicious odor of general warrant to me.

If they want a warrant for information about target A from person B, it should be specifically for information that B has about A, and NOT for everything B has.

Yes, just like you can have a search warrant issued against you to search your home if you have some relation to someone under investigation, and the police have a solid argument that your home may have been involved in the matter.

The problem is that people are treating the full corpus of data as what law enforcement is looking for, when it's really more like the location to be searched. The police aren't requesting the data because they're going to use it all as evidence, but because they have made an argument that it contains evidence in this matter, an a judge has agreed with their reasoning.

Regarding the 62/381 I am pretty sure that the large size of the second number is related to family members and friends of the investigated. If I claim an injury and still go out to play rugby with my friends and he posts a pic of us scrumming the investigators will want a pic of that.

To my mind that's even worse.

Now we can have a warrant for seizing everything a person posted on Facebook because they have some relation to another person being investigated?

That has the suspicious odor of general warrant to me.

If they want a warrant for information about target A from person B, it should be specifically for information that B has about A, and NOT for everything B has.

Yes, just like you can have a search warrant issued against you to search your home if you have some relation to someone under investigation, and the police have a solid argument that your home may have been involved in the matter.

The problem is that people are treating the full corpus of data as what law enforcement is looking for, when it's really more like the location to be searched. The police aren't requesting the data because they're going to use it all as evidence, but because they have made an argument that it contains evidence in this matter, an a judge has agreed with their reasoning.

Yes, but they do not get to come into the house, take everything and peruse it at their leisure.

If they had identified a clear date range (say from the point the person claimed the disability) and clearly requested images, text, or video that pertain to the actual suspect, or events the suspect was suspected to have been engaged in activities relevant to the case - then that would be reasonable.

I would argue that grabbing all the data from a person's Facebook account falls on the side of excessively broad. It puts that pile of data into the hands of law enforcement with no further idea of the uses it could be put to, similar to the article a few days ago where evidence gathered for investigating people who used an accountant was later mined for evidence of the accountant evading taxes.

In that specific case the evidence was thrown out, however it would be quite easy for a prosecutor to do some "parallel construction" and hide the original source of the information.

As for the judge approving the warrants - I will point out that the NSA had judges' stamps, did that make their dragnet kosher?

Words of wisdom: If you're gonna do something illegal, do NOT brag on social media.

/signed

Though I would really like to know how much information they had to get this many warrants issued. Given that only 1/6 of the people targeted were actually charged it seems like these warrants were on some pretty flimsy information. I think it's reasonable to expect a better warrant to charges ratio than this, otherwise warrants stop being meaningful.

The other interesting thing is how far Facebook went to try not to give this information. For a company commonly demonized for not respecting user privacy it's more than I expected.

I find the lengths to which many federal agencies (& some state or local govt. LE) are willing to go in the implementation of surveillance practices to be thoroughly reprehensible & in many instances, clearly illegal.

That noted, I do appreciate the need for covert investigation & intelligence gathering in certain limited, justifiably appropriate circumstances. I consider it reasonable to require that anyone investigated & not charged be notified of the extent to which they were investigated & the rationale for it.

I don't think that evaluating the propriety of an investigation by a 1/6 ratio of individuals surveilled to individuals charged to be either a fair or reasonable metric. It may be that 3, 4 or perhaps even 5 individuals investigated are not themselves targets suspected of fraud, but are known to be closely affiliated with those suspected of committing fraud; so close that the communications sent & received by these individuals may support charges brought against others. Such communication can easily occur without the surveilled target even knowing of the fraud targets allegedly illegal actions.

Because an individual's ties to those suspected of illegal acts, (while themselves being fully innocent of such acts) perhaps warrant their investigation, it's also because of their status as law abiding citizens that they deserve full notification of & explanation for, any & all compromises to their constitutionally guarantied rights.

EDIT: After reading more recent comments my post appears to be somewhat redundant & my apologies if it bores the reader. I will add this one additional thought arrived at after more reading within the comments thread:

While it should be the standard that information asked for & received under warrants is as limited as possible, not every discreet & fully unique database (e.g. Facebook vs. G+) is going to be structured in a fashion that is conducive to such laser-like precision. And again, such investigative overreach is at least in part mitigated by the accountability afforded through post investigation full disclosure to the surveilled.

If indeed New York searched the Facebook accounts of all of their employees who claimed to be disabled, without any evidence to suggest they were faking it, only turning up that evidence on some of them through this search, then I do expect the courts to throw this out as a "fishing expedition".

While I don't in general have any desire to see crooks get off on technicalities, in this case it's clearly an attempt to establish a surveillance society.

IANAL, but since this is a search being executed against Facebook, I can't see how they don't have standing to challenge it. I thought standing mainly meant something affected you directly, so both Facebook and anyone targeted by the search should have standing to challenge it.

I think the argument is that Facebook wasn't, itself, warranted; the people were, Facebook just happened to be the venue.

I can see how that reasoning came about, but I don't think I like it. I mean, while the police could arrest someone at work without a warrant against the workplace, my understanding is they'd have to have a unique warrant to search the person's desk. If so, I would think the same would hold true for Facebook (and other related services).

If i understand correctly, 'Work' could tell them they can search, since its 'Work' property. Or they could serve a warrent to 'Work' to search.

That's my understanding. But in this case it seems, by analogy, they served a warrant to the guy, then went to his job and rooted through his desk drawers because they had a warrant to search his stuff, and just extended that to his work (which is "work's stuff").

But yes, the police can always go somewhere and ask to search. Hell, I could. (I couldn't get a warrant to do it, but I could ask, then search if given permission.)

Words of wisdom: If you're gonna do something illegal, do NOT brag on social media.

I am disabled (I have a physical condition that severely impacts my quality of life) and I am able to do things that surprise many who are aware of the nature of my disability. This does not make me in any way not disabled. The things I do I am able to do because I have understanding friends who take the extra time to help me.

It disgusts me that people still think that being disabled means you cannot sometimes enjoy things that seem impossible. Sometimes it can be a struggle, but what's wrong with wanting to feel normal from time to time?

What does that have to do at all with what he posted? Last I checked, there aren't laws against doing things that people think you can't (unless, for example, you're blind and driving, but that's illegal for a reason...).

... that's exactly my point. It is not illegal to do things that you would think someone with disability X is not capable of doing, yet this is being used as grounds to invade privacy, so someone apparently thinks they are a better judge of someone's condition than that person's doctor. Was the treating physician consulted? Were the patients interviewed? I doubt it.

If I'm giving you money based on some condition, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be outrageous of me to confirm you're actually meeting that condition. The illegal part here would be claiming you're disabled, and fraudulently collecting money, if you actually have a disability, then there's no problem.

And it's not like these people are being convicted on a picture alone, they still have to go through due process. The scope of the warrant however, is concerning.

[quote="lewax00"]If I'm giving you money based on some condition, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be outrageous of me to confirm you're actually meeting that condition./quote]

Have you any familiar with such programs? You have to have medical documentation before you can get disability. As in someone with medical qualifications attests to the fact that you meet the conditions for disability. You don't get to just self-affirm that you are qualified.

IANAL, but I didn't need to go to law school to know this: The law is what a judge says the law is. And the judge in the next higher court, etc. While it is SUPPOSED to mater what the lawmakers say the law is, it really doesn't matter. The law is what the last judge in the chain says it is. If a judge says that you have no standing to challenge a warrant then you have no standing until a judge in a higher court says you do or you run out of courts or money to appeal. Sometimes this is a good thing. Sometimes it isn't.

BTW - FB could have stood up tot he court and accepted the contempt charges. Real journalists do this when they get bullied by the courts.

I don't believe for one second that Facebook is trying to protect the rights of it's users. Facebook is trying to save face and that's all. If people think that Facebook will volunteer turn over data to authorities it stands to lose users. This is damage control by Facebook and nothigg more.

Eventually, I have a feeling this is going to wind up in the Supreme Court and if they have any sense, they'll see it the same way they see the recent case with cell phones.

It's unreasonable to expect less rights than what we already have in the physical world with regards to "gag orders" preventing people from demanding the government prove its need for said data. Especially when they're also saying that even the service providers have no right to debate the point.

Basically, the people who want to bring up charges get to rifle through whatever they like and find something to use to incriminate the person. Our warrant laws aren't a shotgun to blast people until they find something illegal...

As such, I expect eventually (in a few years) these cases to show up and be smacked down by another unanimous decision by the Supreme Court...

If I'm giving you money based on some condition, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be outrageous of me to confirm you're actually meeting that condition.

Have you any familiar with such programs? You have to have medical documentation before you can get disability. As in someone with medical qualifications attests to the fact that you meet the conditions for disability. You don't get to just self-affirm that you are qualified.

And yet for as long as such programs have existed, people have found ways to defraud them and governments have been catching them out with photographic evidence to the contrary. That they're now getting photos from Facebook doesn't actually change the process of catching benefit fraudsters all that much.

So let me get this straight the lower court claimed that only the people effected could fight the warrants so FB had no grounds. They also (I'm assuming it was them) issued a gag order so FB couldn't tell the people effected because then they would know about them.

So basically in order for the people targeted to fight this they need to be physic?

I don't think it's normal to be able to fight a search warrant before it's executed.

If the cops show up at your house with a search warrant, you don't get a chance to read it over and decide whether you agree or not, and if you don't tell them to "go away" you're going to appeal.

You get a chance to challenge the warrant later, and if you win all of the evidence collected is thrown out.

At least, that's how I understand it works.

Still in that case you are aware of the warrent as it is happening. This is more like the police showing up and raiding your house then telling you about it weeks later.

No, more like raiding your house without your knowledge, then arresting you weeks later for fraud, then when you are in court they present intimate knowledge of the contents of your home, including your underwear drawer, as evidence at trial, even though as far as you were aware, they never had access to your private residence.

IANAL, but I didn't need to go to law school to know this: The law is what a judge says the law is. And the judge in the next higher court, etc. While it is SUPPOSED to mater what the lawmakers say the law is, it really doesn't matter. The law is what the last judge in the chain says it is. If a judge says that you have no standing to challenge a warrant then you have no standing until a judge in a higher court says you do or you run out of courts or money to appeal. Sometimes this is a good thing. Sometimes it isn't.

BTW - FB could have stood up tot he court and accepted the contempt charges. Real journalists do this when they get bullied by the courts.

Not entirely. The law is what the jury decides.

No, the jury decides whether or not and how to apply the law, not what the law is.